Ginger beer gives a buck more bang

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, July 26, 2009

Erick Castro makes a Kentucky Buck at the Rickhouse, Wednesday July 8, 2009, in San Francisco, Calif.

Erick Castro makes a Kentucky Buck at the Rickhouse, Wednesday July 8, 2009, in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

Ginger beer gives a buck more bang

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When ginger ale or beer is mixed with citrus in a drink, it is - or more accurately, was - known as a buck.

Early cocktail books list recipes for the gin buck or London buck cocktail, and variations of rum bucks were called the Shanghai buck, Jamaica buck or Barbados buck, depending on the type of rum used. If you squeeze your lime garnish into a Dark 'n' Stormy, you've got a rum buck.

"The buck is one of those cocktails that works with every base spirit," says Erick Castro, beverage director at Rickhouse, the new Financial District bar. "Most cocktails don't work with gin and scotch and vodka and rum."

Another name for a buck is a mule, thanks to the vodka-based Moscow mule, which was invented in Los Angeles. Both ginger beer and vodka saw a new popularity in the United States in the 1940s through the 1960s because of this drink, served in its signature copper mug.

Ginger beer largely fell out of favor after the Moscow mule craze subsided, but has become more readily available as of late. At least six brands of ginger beer can be found in the Bay Area, though the flavor varies widely among them. Bundaberg may be a bit tame, while Fentimans is slightly spicier and livened with a touch of pear flavor. Others include Maine Root and a newly arrived version from Fever Tree.

Between the many brands of ginger beer now on the market and their homemade ginger syrups, bartenders are again making ginger a prominent flavor, mixing it with every spirit they can find.

One of the most popular drinks at Beretta in the Mission District is the agricole mule - rum agricole along with mint and ginger. At Pisco Latin Lounge, bartenders serve the Peruvian patada with pisco (Peruvian grape brandy), ginger liqueur, mint and ginger beer. Several bars around town have offered the El Diablo, which dates back at least to the 1940s and is made with tequila and creme de cassis, plus lime and ginger beer. Dosa Fillmore's smoked cup contains mescal, Pimm's, black cardamom tincture, ginger beer, cucumber and smoked sea salt.

In the past decade, Audrey Saunders of Pegu Club in New York created the popular gin-gin mule, which calls for gin and homemade ginger beer and adds refreshing mint to the mule equation. On the West Coast, bartender Marcovaldo Dionysos used the same flavors in a different arrangement in his Ginger Rogers cocktail, found at the bar Absinthe.

"The 1914 recipe for the favorite cocktail on which the Ginger Rogers is based calls for ginger beer," Dionysos says. "I didn't have any on hand, so used ginger syrup (plus ginger ale) to provide the extra bite. I still use ginger ale."

The difference between ginger ale and ginger beer is not in alcohol content but in the intensity of ginger flavor. Ginger beer is usually spicier and bolder, and can stand up to more intensely flavored spirits in mixed drinks.

Castro prefers ginger beer. "Ginger ale is just so tame and domesticated," he says.

He intends to pay tribute by offering several ginger beer drinks at Rickhouse: the "famous Shanghai buck" and the Ginger Rogers, plus Castro's own creation, the Kentucky Buck. He invented the drink last spring while working at Rickhouse's sister bar, Bourbon & Branch. He begins with a bourbon buck and adds a muddled strawberry and bitters to create a summer cocktail.

"The buck is such a great drink, such a proud lineage," Castro says. "The buck is a predecessor to so many different styles of cocktails."

Kentucky Buck

Makes 1 serving

Adapted from a recipe by Erick Castro of Rickhouse.

3/4 ounce lemon juice

1 medium strawberry

2 ounces bourbon

2 dashes Angostura bitters

1/2 ounce simple syrup

-- Ginger beer

-- Lemon wheel and strawberry, for garnish

Instructions: Place lemon juice and strawberry into a mixing glass and muddle strawberry vigorously. Pour in bourbon, bitters and simple syrup. Add ice and shake. Strain over ice into a collins glass and top with ginger beer. Garnish with finely sliced strawberry and lemon wheel.

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